Sat 7/24 - 10 hour hike/run, Maroon Bells Four Pass Loop

Much-anticipated and feared excursion into the wilderness (literally) that ended up being mostly a hike. I would estimate only 2-3 hours of the total time was spent running, the rest of it was either too steep up or down or I was too tired (most of the last 4 hours or so). Starting at the Schofield Park trailhead and going counterclockwise, the first pass (West Maroon) went by the quickest. The descent to Crater Lake went by well enough although the footing was poor at times over talus fields. The climb up to Buckskin Pass was more punishing than I could ever have imagined, but the view was spectacular and the descent to Snowmass Lake was the most runnable and least insanely steep of all four descents. I thought at this point that I would be able to finish the thing in 8 hours but the effort took its toll and by the time I was climbing to Trail Rider pass it was clear I wasn't going to be doing much uphill running anymore. I had hopes of being able to run most of the descent off of Trail Rider but that ended up being a hideous and seemingly never-ending plummet to the valley floor. When I got there I encountered a stretch where every single tree had been blown down across the trail, instead of jogging it was necessary to clamber over tree after tree for a good 15 minutes. In addition, it became clear at around the 6 hour mark that the gallon or so of fluids I had carried along wasn't going to be enough and I had to break out the iodine tablets. This got me through but the rationing of fluid left me very close to being full-on dehydrated. By the time I got above treeline leading to Frigid Air Pass I was in a pretty foul mood. Still able to run some of the less steep parts of the ascent though, and I still thought I'd be able to run some of the last section back to the trailhead. However, another punishingly steep descent off the pass left my legs completely spent when it came to any kind of downhill running. Since I was too tired for any uphill running, flat ground was the only type of terrain I was going to be able to run on. Since there was no flat ground, I didn't run a step the rest of the way. Remained lucid throughout, and not even that sore overall while doing it, but it was perfectly clear the tank was empty. While peeved at how long it took to do the loop, I'm still glad I did it and was able to complete the loop and see one amazing vista after another, and I knew this even in the depths of my frustrations over quad-destroying descents, downed trees, and running out of water. It's worth pointing out that the scale of the landscape was totally unfamiliar, in that everything was so much larger, longer, higher, steeper, etc. Despite poring over maps and reading accounts of the loop, it took experiencing it directly for this to sink in. Useless to attempt to describe the scenery, but a picture from each pass is worth inclusion:

West Maroon

Buckskin

Trail Rider (w/Snowmass Lake)

Frigid Air